Opening Community Circle (10 minutes)
What is one learning you’ve been sitting with, or one action you took since our last time together?
Community Agreements (5 minutes)
Reread the community agreements, participants share in a circle one that they want to push themselves to commit to today
Discussion: RTWT Protocol (50 Minutes)
Framing: Relationships are at the heart of a school community.; however, often the idea of relationship building is not intention nor prioritized. The documents that were shared highlight many aspects of both creating strong relationships across school stakeholders as well as the benefit of these relationships for learning and risk-taking.
Discussion
- What are the different relationships that exist in a school?
- What power dynamics might come into play in these relationships?
- What ways have we actively built and nurtured relationships? What ways have we neglected intentional relationship building? How does this impact our school?
- What shifts can be made to prioritize relationship building?
Key Takeaways
- We often focus on student/teacher relationships; however, all the relationships in a school are important to build and nurture as a school continues on their anti-racism journey.
- There are strategies to develop trust. We must intentionally create trust in our relationships so we can engage in crucial conversations with each other and ensure our environments (classroom and school) are welcoming to all, especially focused on those who feel least comfortable in the space or who have traditionally been left out of the space.
- We must interrogate power dynamics in the relationships that exist in a school and intentionally shift power to those who traditionally have the least.
Reflection - Journal (7 minutes)
- What is something you are learning that is challenging your thinking or beliefs? Affirming your thinking/beliefs?
- What is one action I/we can commit to doing after this session to work toward BIPOC and LGBTQ+ Liberation?
- What is one action I/we can commit to stop doing after this session to work toward BIPOC and LGBTQ+ Liberation?
Closing Community Circle (7 minutes)
Pick one of these to share as you go around the circle.
Addition Resources
- Documents from CRE Hub
- CRE Family Engagement
- Listening Tool for Educators for CRE Family Engagement
- Take Home Journaling Questions
- What identities do I share and not share with members of our school community?
- How do I see our student community/ staff? What narratives & stereotypes have unknowingly internalized that impact the way I see the communities I work with?
- What power and privilege do I have relative to students and staff in my school? What is the possible role that privilege could play in my interactions with these people?
- What practices can I intentionally engage in to start addressing those misconceptions and barriers to forming stronger relationships with students and staff?
Build strong connections and relationships with students, which requires understanding their lives, backgrounds and identities
